Holiday Stories of Yugioh GX
by Icyburn
Summary: Short crack pieces about the Yu-gi-oh GX characters during holidays. Will only be updated on major holidays. A review is always appreciated.
1. Halloween

_Right, sorry I haven't been on the site for so long. I've been busy with captaining the team (we're doing well) and in any case, as you might've noticed, "I'm Supposed to Like WHO!" got deleted. There's a link to it on my profile (I've uploaded it to freewebs). I will update it whenever I get the time, but I'm really trying to remain more active on fanfiction. So, send reviews/pairing requests to me by PMing me **and specify that it's for that story. **Otherwise I'll be going, "What the hell are they talking about?"_

_Anyway, I thought I'd start a new series of crack. These will be about holidays and will only be updated for important holidays. So here's the Halloween one._

Chapter 1: Halloween

"You know, who thought up this brilliant idea of letting a bunch of kids run around local neighborhoods dressed up as fridge boxes and Sarah Palins, with buckets and paper bags stuck over their heads, and giving them candy to get them on a sugar high?" Zane murmured to himself after the hellish night of trick-or-treating.

He'd gotten stuck with the psychos Jaden and Atticus, who were running around and displaying…censored images…and trying to sing "Kyle's Mom is a Bitch" about two feet away from some old lady who was on the verge of passing out. Syrus had stood paralyzed in front of a car until Alexis pulled him out of the way, Axel had insisted on taste testing every piece of candy they got for poison until Adrian sardonically pointed out that the wrappers would tell all, and Yusuke had stepped on his nerd glasses and become unconsolable. Then Mindy chipped her left toenail. Horror of horrors.

"Why the hell couldn't I go with the other group?" Zane cursed softly under his breath. The other group had mostly sane people, consisting of Aster, Sarina, Sartorius, Bastion, Hassleberry, Chazz, Jesse, and Chumley. And Blair. OK, then, maybe he didn't want a rabid fangirl following him around. Also, at least Jim and Jasmine hadn't done anything yet. Jasmine seemed a little more practical than Mindy, although nothing approaching Alexis's level. Jim had managed to keep that giant Shirley thing of his calm, and Zane hoped he didn't do that by giving her candy. Who knew what havoc a crocodile on a sugar high might wreak? He could see the front headlines tomorrow clearly in his head—"BIG NEWS! CROCODILE DEVOURS FIVE-YEAR-OLD!"

Then there was the sheer stupidity of the costumes. Jim hadn't had to dress up to be an explorer. The Kaiser himself was Gandalf, Syrus was Frodo (not too embarrassing), Atticus was a surfer dude with a bad hair day, Alexis was Dark Magician Girl, Jasmine and Mindy were the Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Yusuke was a nerd (now minus the glasses), Axel was a Marine Captain, Adrian "was pretending to be" a dog, and last but certainly not least, Jaden….was a dick. Zane had told everybody that Jaden was a hot dog bun because he didn't know how the people would react to the truth…

So now they were back at the Truesdales' house to trade and gloat over or whine over their spoils of war. Why did it always have to be him? Zane thought resignedly. He approached his little brother and touched him on the shoulder. "Hey."

Syrus yelped, still a little nervous about the car incident. He turned red and straightened his glasses, then muttered out, "Hey, big bro. What d'ya want?"

It pained Zane to say it, but he managed, "You're closer to Jaden than me, right?"

Syrus turned redder, if it was possible, and whispered, "Yeah."

"Can you please get him out of the house somehow?"

Syrus perked up and was about to agree with Zane when there was a loud explosion from the house.

"Shit!" Zane growled under his breath and raced off to the house, Syrus trying to keep up beside him and mostly not succeeding.

It was chaos inside the house. Streamers and wrappers everywhere, candy bits and pieces strewn randomly across the floor and the tables. Zane held up his arm lazily to shield Syrus from a falling box loaded with paper cups. The giant bowl that used to be filled with hot chocolate was now empty and looked like it had been licked clean. In fact, Zane didn't think that there was any sign of candy around the house now.

Through Zane's daze, the chorus of the other people inside the house's voices cut through loud and clear and made him groan.

"CHUMLEY!"

_Right, hope I haven't lost my touch…Trick or treat safely and happy Halloween!_


	2. Thanksgiving

_Thanksgiving should be a little more relaxing for Zane, but who knows? Turkey isn't that harmless either. Have you ever gotten pecked in the crotch by one? According to my friend it hurts like hell…_

"DAMMIT ATTICUS! YOU'RE TWO YEARS OLDER THAN YOUR SISTER AND SHE HAS TWICE AS MUCH SENSE AS YOU! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF! AND HOW IS THAT POSITION YOU'RE IN WITH JADEN EVEN POSSIBLE, MY FRIGGIN' GOD!"

"What position?" Syrus stood on tiptoe to try and peer over Zane's shoulder.

Zane sighed and shoved his little brother backwards gently. "Nothing, I've got the party under control. Yes, under control."

Syrus shrugged. "If you say so," and with that he ran off to go see Jesse's new booster packs' contents.

Zane rubbed his temples and scowled heavily. As if Halloween with the dick boy and Chumley devouring everybody's sugar wasn't enough, less than a month later they had another holiday that was centered on frickin' EATING! Also, although he'd put a filter on their TV, that nerd Adrian somehow managed to put on the South Park movie anyway!

_"Listen, you donkey-raping shit-eater!"_

"Turn that crap off!" Zane roared, a temple pulsing dangerously as he looked over at the bunch of people watching TV and laughing their asses off.

Jesse pointedly turned the volume up so that "_Shut your fucking face, unclefucker!" _blared loudly in Zane's ears. Zane growled.

"Listen, Anderson, this is my house and you'll go by my rules while you're in it, you hear me? So turn that movie off or else!"

"But this is my house too, big bro, and I wanna see it!" Syrus whined.

"Yeah, Zaney, don't be a spoilsport! I'm trying to introduce these people to the real, hard world!" Atticus tried to look fierce and failed.

Sighing, the Kaiser of Duel Academy growled angrily and turned on his best friend. "Fine! Go rot your brains out! See if I care! And don't bare your teeth at me, Atticus, you're just showing off your tooth decay!"

"It's only 32 toothaches, though!"

"That's _all_ of your teeth!" Alexis barked. "You don't have the gut or the stamina of Chumley so don't act like you do and kill yourself!"

Zane smiled to himself. Maybe with Alexis he could get this party—

_CRASH!_

_"_SHIT!" Zane sprinted out of the TV room to see what had happened in the third explosion of the day. The first time Jaden had exploded the kitchen by experimenting what would happen if you microwaved an egg, and the second time Sartorius had a premonition thingy and decided that the only way that the feast would escape disaster would be to set a tank of gas on fire. I mean, what the hell?! Zane thought. And he dreaded what would happen now because third time was always the worst…

Aster gave a disgusted growl as he turned back to the movie. "Big old hypocrite. And he was lecturing _us_ about not using foul language!"

Zane, however, had a good reason to swear because as he thought, the third time was always the worst. Maybe leaving Chumley and Jim Cook together was a worse idea than he thought…

Chumley had decided to make his own super uber ultra jacked-up who-the-fuck-cares-if-it's-your-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather's-special-recipe brand of candy. Jim apparently thought that was a great idea and sent Shirley to the supermarket to grab some fish so they could avoid asking Zane for money for the expenses. So much for his good sense, anyway. Guess what happened next?

A disastrous scene erupted before Zane's eyes, with a police officer shooting a gun in the air for order, Jim covering the wrathful Shirley with his own body and offering to take any punishment that they wanted to deal out to him, and Chumley throwing bowls at people and…mostly not missing.

"JESUS CHRIST!" Zane strode out into the middle of the mess and told the police officer bluntly, "I'm the one in charge of this party and my name is Zane Truesdale, pro duelist and former Kaiser of Duel Academy. Any charges should be pressed against me, officer."

Taken aback, the policeman blinked a couple times and stammered, "Uh, no problem sir, Mr. Kaiser. We'll clear this up."

Zane breathed out in relief and was about to relax until he heard Axel roar from his house, "DAMMIT ATTICUS, LEGGO OF MY BUTT!"

Zane groaned. _How the fuck did we become friends again?_

"And may we all accept God's grace over this meal, and some crap that I can't read, and Hanukkah is awesome and so much better than Thanksgiving, and—"

Alexis groaned, took her speech from Jaden, and gave it to Bastion. He'd actually understand it and his British accent would give a good touch to her speech. She should know. She wrote it.

"And may we all accept God's grace over this meal, which is bountiful because we are blessed by Heaven. And may we all think about how lucky we all are because of this even as we eat."

Alexis had expected applause.

Silence. Only punctuated by a snore from Jaden.

Bastion, Zane, and Syrus clapped for her politely while Atticus poked Jaden's gut mercilessly, screaming, "TIMETOEATIMETOEATIMETOEAT!"

Chumley grabbed a whole turkey leg. "Betcha you can't eat more!"

"BETCHA WE CAN!" Jaden and Atticus yelled in chorus.

Zane just smiled to himself and waited for the sleep medicine in. He _would_ get the last laugh this time, especially on that precocious Jim—

"Sorry mates, but I can't eat till I feed Shirley. Be back in a minute!"

Or maybe not.

_Well, who knew _Jim_ would be the one to give Zane the biggest migraine to date? Anyway, happy Thanksgiving, and reviews are appreciated._


	3. ChristmasHanukkah

_Hey peoples! I'd like to make a couple general announcements before we get into the story. (Christmas and Hanukkah?! Presents? Poor old Zane…)_

_You might've noticed I changed the character to Ryo Marufuji (that'd be Zane's Japanese name) because I noticed all the holidays were occurring from his point of view._

_I'm finally going to start replying to reviews. New reviews, not old ones, and I can't give you a review unless you're logged in. Anonymous reviewers take notice! And I know this is posted early, I'm going skiing until Friday or Saturday…_

_Hmm, I think that's all. Oh yeah, and I included Hanukkah because Christmas is seriously almost entirely Christian and Hanukkah is around the same time. Enjoy!_

Chapter 3: Christmas and Hanukkah

"OK, what the hell was the government thinking when they made Christmas a national holiday?" Zane muttered darkly to himself as he sank into the armchair. "We currently have both a Christmas tree and a Hanukkah menorah in our house, not to mention we've got a billion atheists here too and Jaden wants to turn Monkist because he thinks that's a religion!"

"What! It is!" Jaden yelled cheerfully, tripping over the string of Christmas ornaments for the hundredth time and crashing into Bastion.

Zane rolled his eyes and went to see how the cooking was going.

"OK, own up! Who left the top of the blender open?"

Grinning sheepishly, Jesse raised his hand. "Sorry 'bout that Zane, Shirley just came in and the kitchen went into a panic. She went after the Salisbury Steak!"

"So you hit the button on the blender with a pint of vanilla ice cream, three Oreos, a handful of fresh cherries, and a dollop of whipped cream inside?! "

Jesse shrugged. "What'd you do if you got attacked by a rabid crocodile?"

Zane thought for a moment. "Touché, Anderson."

"Hey! Shirley ain't rabid, mates, she just got a booster!" Jim yelled.

"COOK! What are you mixing up now?!" Zane roared, his vein pulsing.

"Now _that's_ a pun…" muttered Adrian as he walked by trying to balance a pile of bowls stacked on top of one another.

"Ah, it's fine, mate, just some barley cakes smothered with red bean paste and barbecue sauce with a dollop of mashed potatoes and ketchup!" Jim said cheerily.

_"WHO THE HELL IS GOING TO EAT THAT?!"_

"I WILL!" Atticus called.

"You don't count."

"Only if I had to do it to survive," Axel volunteered.

"Not even then…" growled Alexis as she quietly knocked out her brother with a frying pan. "He can wait until tonight to get sugar high…"

"Hey, big bro!" Syrus's voice came from downstairs. "Jaden wants somebody to help him put his boots on but I'm not strong enough to push them on. Can you help?"

Zane groaned. _Why is it always me?..._

"Jaden, hold out the other foot."

"Ok," Jaden said, sticking out his left foot as Zane pushed the other boot onto it with a grunt. "Wait, the boots are on the wrong feet!"

Zane bit his lip as he pulled the boots back off and stuck them on the right feet this time. "You're all set. Now—"

"These aren't my boots though!"

"Oh really?" Zane took the boots off again.

"Nope, Mom got them at some discount place and made me wear them!"

"…So you can still wear them?"

"Silly Zane! Of course I can!"

The boots went back on again. "Za-aaane! They're on the wrong feet again!"

As Zane took the boots off for the third time, he thought, _If that insufferable boy makes me take those boots off again I'll murder him! _"Anything wrong now?"

Jaden thought for a minute. "Nope!"

"All right," Zane said loudly. "Now we can put on your gloves. Where'd you put your gloves?"

"I forgot." Jaden tried to think about where he put them.

Zane's vein started pulsing again after 5 minutes. "Do you remember yet?!"

"Oh yeah! I was afraid I was gonna lose them, so I stuffed them in my boots!"

Alexis looked downstairs with mild alarm.

"Hm, wonder what that explosion was?"

Zane went back in after systematically murdering Jaden and decided to try and get some rest before the giant dinner.

_After that Thanksgiving dinner I'll be pretty damned glad once the holiday season is over…_ he thought to himself grumpily.

"Zane, c'mon! You're the head of the house and we're supposed to bless the food or something like that!" Chazz bellowed.

"I'm coming, emo boy! Just let me get some quiet!"

An hour later Zane was sitting at the head of the table making a pitiful attempt to appear composed and confident that nothing at all was going to happen. Nothing _at all._

"All right, everybody, dig in!"

The feast _started _well, but with Jaden and Atticus at the table nothing was ever going to end up well.

First Jaden smashed Atticus over the head with a meaty chicken leg, and since the Love Master wouldn't stand for this he retaliated by hurling a baked potato at Jaden. It missed and instead hit Blair, who then threw one of Aster's famous rock cakes at Satorius. Sartorius fended that off with a plastic butter knife and it instead went into Chumley's gaping maw. Chumley spat it out and it pinged off of Sarina's left hand and then, in horror, Alexis and Zane watched as it attacked a snoring Hassleberry's head.

With a roar of rage, Hassleberry leaped up, tipping the chair back, and broke the table in half by smashing his hand on it.

Jaden and Atticus ran into the kitchen screaming like little girls. Their next words made Zane's eyes widen in horror.

"Hey look! Beer!"

"And this, Zane, is why you don't let people who have cheese for brains watch The Simpsons…" Zane muttered as he dialed 911.


	4. New Year

_Hey guys! Hope you're enjoying your winter vacation; I know I liked the skiing trip. Even though that lodge's track was pathetic…_

_I wasn't planning to do a New Year's fic at first, but a reviewer suggested that I do one and I thought it was a great idea._

_Enjoy! Reviews are appreciated as usual._

"This _cannot_ be happening to me."

Zane Truesdale sank back into the soft couch and groaned softly.

Syrus looked hopefully at his big brother. "Oh c'mon! I know it's only been seven days since that Christmas disaster—"

"—six, Sy, six—"

"—but a New Year's party would really be great!"

"Oh, so you want to celebrate me getting closer to being an old geezer now?!"

"I never said that, you—I mean." Syrus switched to the "I'm a cute puppy, look at my eyes!" trick. "Pleeeeeeeeeease????"

Zane sighed. He had the feeling that he was making a BAD choice. "FINE."

"WOOT! I love you!" Syrus gave his big brother a hug and ran off to call Jaden.

Zane groaned. Definitely a bad idea…

The next day, Zane was starting to contemplate taking "Puppy Eye Resistance" classes. _He_ wasn't going insane.

Almost everybody else was.

Actually, Zane had to admit that he was pretty damned stupid too. Since Alexis was one of the saner people, he'd decided to invite her to come over earlier than everybody else. He'd completely forgotten that Atticus would come over earlier too.

Well, you can imagine what happened when Zane opened the door…

After everybody else had arrived at the party and proceeded to mess up the house Zane spent the past 5 days cleaning up after Christmas, they quickly got bored talking to each other, so Syrus showed them the Wii his parents got him for Christmas that Zane had specifically told him to _not_ show them because he was afraid of what Atticus might do if he got a little too absorbed in the video game.

Whew. What a long sentence…

As Zane had feared, Atticus and Jaden were so fascinated by the Wii and the virtual tennis video game Syrus popped in the Wii that they forgot where they were.

"DIE YOU LITTLE DICKWEED!" Jaden screamed as he raised his arm and smashed the chandelier that Zane forgot to hide in a box. Damn!

"NOT LIKELY!" Atticus's player tried to block Jaden's player's smash, but Atticus himself tripped on his own sock and fell forwards, smashing his head straight through the TV and effectively ending the game.

"Crikey, did summat happen, mates?" Jim asked as he ran into the TV room.

Bastion joined them. "What the bloody devil was that? Did Jaden smash something made out of glass with a baseball bat?"

Zane pressed his pulsing vein with his left hand to keep it from exploding as he used his other hand to point to the mess. Jim and Bastion's jaws dropped open.

They had a beautiful view of Atticus's rear as he kicked his feet, one sockless, into the air wildly and tried to pull his head out of the remains of the TV. Jaden was laughing his ass off nearby as Chazz repeatedly bashed his head against the wall.

"Zane, I'm going to sue you for not restraining your savage TV!" came Atticus's muffled voice.

Alexis growled in anger and picked Mr. Truesdale's golf club up from the floor. "You ungrateful bastard!" She swung the club at her older brother's head. It clunked as though the head was hollow.

Hm, wonder what that means…

"OW! Not so hard, sis!"

"How can _anyone_ destroy so much stuff so quickly and then have the audacity to threaten to sue their poor victim?! You, of course!"

"Hey, sis?"

"…_Now_ what? This had better be good!"

"Is aw-dah-sih-tee a sex toy?"

"All right then," Zane muttered to himself. "That's one shattered chandelier, a broken TV, a bent golf club, and a concussed Atticus with 2 missing canines…I wonder if insurance covers all of this?..."

"Hey, if we don't have a TV does that mean that we can't watch the Big Apple drop?" Blair asked, yawning widely.

"Holy shit! You're right, it's 11:50 already!" yelped Adrian as he looked at the kitchen clock. "Hey Zane, got any other TVs?"

Zane sighed. Luckily insurance _had_ covered everything. What was one more TV to them, anyway? Load of rich people.

"Yep, in the lounge, it's the room right next to me."

By now it was 11:58 and the gang turned on the TV in time to watch the countdown. Jaden was so excited to see the Big Apple that he fainted and had to be revived by Jesse fanning him with a book.

The Apple dropped. It was 2009.

Everybody except Chumley cheered and started blowing noisemakers and wishing their neighbors a happy new year.

Chumley, instead, pointed to the giant ball and turned around with a confused look on his face.

"Hey, where's that giant apple?"

Zane looked into the lounge and sighed, then started to speak into the phone again.

"Sorry, but could you make that _two_ TVs?"


	5. Martin Luther King Jr Day & Inauguration

_After nearly a month…I'm back! Mwahaha, fear the random runner's randomness!_

_Anyway….since Martin Luther King Jr. Day (1/19) and Inauguration Day (1/20) are right next to each other and I'm too lazy to upload two documents to , I decided to combine them into one giant opus of destruction!_

_Reviews are appreciated as always._

Chapter 5: Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Obama's Inauguration

"NO! NOT OUR HOUSE, ATTICUS, DAMMIT! NOT OUR—"

The incorrigible dumbass shoved his BFF Zane aside and ran into the Truesdales' home, bellowing happily, "I LUUUUURVE WHEN WE HAVE PARTIES AT YOUR HOUSE, ZANE! THEY'RE SO FUN!"

"No duh, that means _you_ don't have to clean anything up…" muttered Syrus.

"Atticus Rhodes! Get your ass out of poor Zane and Syrus's house this instant!" Alexis yelled.

Atticus blinked stupidly. "Wait, we are?"

"No really, our mom put up those streamers and African-American posters just because she felt like it, Atty."

"Oh good, I _knew_ that you were only kidding with me, sis!"

Alexis's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND SARCASM, DUMBASS?! WE _ARE_ HOSTING THE PARTY THIS TIME!"

"Good, maybe I can enjoy some peace and quiet this time," Zane thought to himself as he and Syrus followed the other two siblings.

Zane was a little disappointed to find out that this wouldn't be the case. In fact, the scene unfolding before his eyes was starting to remind him of that incident with Syrus in the booster seat…

Jaden had no clue what Martin Luther King Jr. Day was about and was instead busying himself drawing mustaches on everybody in the civil rights history books Alexis laid out on the table. He was currently working on his masterpiece, a two-page spread of the march on Washington.

Unfortunately for his concentration, Blair was livid at his defacing important people in history and was repeatedly smashing a pie in his face.

Zane dodged the flying pie tin and looked at Alexis. "Are you _sure_ your parents won't mind this?"

Alexis shrugged. "Couldn't let you take any more of this anyway. Besides, how much damage can these people cause?"

Meanwhile…

Sartorius was attacking the blender with an egg beater as Sarina attempted to restrain him, an infuriated Adrian was plastering Jesse's hair with cookie dough, Bastion was in a frenzy because Axel had put in 54 milliliters of cooking oil instead of 55, and Jim's insane crocodile Shirley was biting Hassleberry's…babymakers…

Zane coughed and tactfully looked away as Hassleberry hopped by, screaming and hitting Shirley's head with the haft of a knife as Jim followed him, pleading, "Please, mate, she's harmless!"

"And this is supposed to teach us all about Martin Luther King how?" Yusuke asked wryly, catching an egg thrown by Aster and hurling it back.

Alexis winced as a stentorian roar from the boy prodigy followed. "It's not even that boisterous of a holiday..."

"AND AAAAAAAH HAAVE A DREEEEEEEAM!" Atticus bawled loudly on karaoke, earning the enmity of all dogs for eternity.

Chazz flinched, chucking one of Aster's own rock cakes back at him as he joined the group. "Simon Cowell would disembowel him."

"Yeah, I guess, but we should probably all go to sleep if we want to see the entirety of Obama's inauguration tomorrow," said Zane.

"WHAT?! THAT'S WHY WE'RE HERE?! OBAMA SUCKS ASS?!" Chumley howled from upstairs.

"SHUT UP! YOU'RE JUST ANGRY BECAUSE WE DIDN'T LET YOU EAT ALL THE CAKE BATTER FOR THE OBAMA CAKE!" screeched Syrus.

Zane groaned. _Please don't let this turn out like Election Day…_

"—COME ON UP FOR THE RISING—"

"ATTICUS! WE'VE HEARD ENOUGH OF THE RISING FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS, THANK YOU!" Zane roared, his vein pulsing again.

Jaden danced around in his pajamas, obviously thrilled to be seeing the end of the Republican reign.

(Jaden, for anybody who doesn't know him very well, supports Democrats because he has the idea that they let people party all the time and not go to school. Wonder where he got that from.)

"Oh c'mon Zane, it's not that often that we get to watch it live!"

"Jaden, you know this is a recording from the 18th?" Syrus asked.

Silence.

"NOOOO!" Jaden bawled, bursting into tears. "You've got to be kidding me!" He pounded the floor dramatically and Atticus joined him.

"EMBRACE YOUR NATURAL SIDE, JADEN! LET IT OOOOOOOUT!"

"Oh lord…" Zane growled to himself. "Can it, you two!"

Meanwhile, Chumley was still a little sore from the fact that the others didn't let him eat the cake batter. Besides, he'd been a Ralph Nader supporter and didn't get all this excitement over Obama.

He stumbled downstairs blearily and nearly tripped over Atticus's guitar, which the aspiring rockstar had smashed yesterday when he was jamming with Jaden. Something smelled really good in the kitchen…

"Hey, has anyone seen that Obama cake we baked yesterday?" Bastion asked.

"It's on the—" Chazz swore in surprise. "Hey, it's not there!"

"Hm, wonder where it is," Chumley muttered to himself as he walked by and absently swiped at the crumbs on his mouth.


	6. Valentine's Day

_I'm very, very sorry for the long delay. The people who've practically memorized every important holiday may have noticed that I've skipped Chinese New Year and Groundhog's Day. I've been really busy with stuff in school, and one of my more obsessive cross country runners got attacked by a random German Shepherd when he was exploring the woods. Pretty much everybody who was on the team has spent the last week and a half waiting in the hospital for him to get better. He's finally managed to get out. The owner claims that he provoked poochie by throwing a rock at him. So dog owners, please don't be offended when I poke fun at the more obsessive people among you. OK, you people don't care about this so I should shut up now… ;)_

_I don't own anything except the fic. Reviews are appreciated._

Chapter 6: Valentine's Day

Zane grinned to himself as he slowed the treadmill down to a walk and looked at the LCD display. 2.75 miles in 20 minutes!

"Hey Zane?" Syrus, his little brother, called from upstairs.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Did you remember that we have to go to a party at Jaden's house for Valentine's Day in 5 minutes?"

Zane froze, nearly catapulting himself off the treadmill as the memory crashed down on his brain like icy water. Oh shit, another one of those nutty holiday parties during which everything seemed to go wrong.

"Don't worry big bro," Syrus yelled, sensing the reason for Zane's discomfort. "It's at Jaden's house and I bet his mom's already used to him destroying it around once a month."

Smiling to himself—what Syrus just said was probably true—Zane unplugged the treadmill and ran upstairs while he threw on a fleece jacket quickly. "Yeah, but I bet she hasn't had Jaden invite _twenty_ nutcases plus Alexis, who's normal, over at the same time."

"Oh, so you're counting yourself as a nut?" Syrus teased.

His older brother groaned. "Shut up."

"Oh my god," Zane gasped as he parked the car. "What the fucking hell did Jaden do to his poor house?!"

The poor thing used to be a normal, light blue-colored house. However Jaden and Atticus had decided to, uh, liven up the atmosphere a little. It was spray-painted a garish shade of magenta pink, with all the grass painted blood red and the driveway bright purple. Purple, red, and various shades of pink streamers were draped randomly and excessively over everything Jaden though was necessary to cover.

(Jaden thought it was necessary to cover everything.)

"BLOODY BASTARDS!" Bastion bellowed, shaking his fist at Chazz and Jesse, who had run away high-fiving each other at the success of their plan. "GET THIS LOVESTRUCK IDIOT AWAY FROM ME!"

"Oooh Bastion," cooed Mindy, trying to hug the fleeing Bastion and not succeeding. "You're breaking my heart! First you send me the perfect flirty valentine and then you run away and tell me you aren't in love!"

"I'M TELLING YOU WOMAN, I'M STUDYING FOR MY GRADUATE SCHOOL SCIENCE EXAM AND I'M _NOT_ INTERESTED IN SEX!"

"Wait a second mate, you're taking graduate-level science courses before you've even graduated from high school?" Jim asked, scratching his head and not even paying attention to the escaping Shirley.

"During summer vacation he goes to Harvard and takes the entire year's graduate school course in two and a half months," Axel explained.

"Join the nerd club!" Aster and Adrian chorused happily.

"Whoa, he's pretty damned smart!" Hassleberry looked down, feeling a sudden amount of pain down under. What could it b—

"AAAAAAAAUGH! Jim, your stupid crocodile bitch is loose again!"

"Did you just call Shirley a bitch, you puffed-up little motherfucker?"

"I don't have any interest in my ma, you shitfaced cocklicker!"

"What did you call me, you—"

Zane shook his head happily. It looked like a *cough* NORMAL party with the GX gang so far. Syrus was running off to give Jaden a hug, and the sounds of Atticus trying to sing "I'm Too Sexy" at the top of his lungs on karaoke were getting countered by Yusuke, who had a much better voice, singing "Dance Floor Anthem" from upstairs.

"Hey Zane!" Jaden yelled happily, running up and giving the older duelist a hug. "How're you enjoying the party?!"

Zane grinned back and ruffled Jaden's hair. "It's going great so far! So I saw you decided to…spice stuff up a little…"

Jaden broke free from the hug and flashed a smile at him. "Yeeah, Atticus and me thought it was too boring so we decided to spray paint it. Except all the spray paint washed off for 5 days in a row because we forgot to check the weather and it rained every day for 5 days!"

Zane froze. "Uh, that's nice to know…"

"Yeah! And everyone's running around and eating chocolate and proposing to people! Chazz just got his 15th bloody nose from Alexis and Chumley's on his 10th pound of chocolate in the Who Can Eat the Most Chocolate Contest. We couldn't stop him when he won 9.5 pounds back. Oh wait a second, it looks like Sartorius just got an idea!"

Indeed, Sartorius _did_ have an idea. Apparently, even with 3 geniuses at the party, nobody had thought of simply pouring ice cold water on Chumley's head. Chumley stopped eating for the 1st time in 10 minutes with a start, his face covered with brown.

"HEY! It's not nice to stop someone in the middle of a meal!"

"Whoa, Chumley!" Blair yelped as she ran by. "Did you just stick your face in that rabid dog's shit or what!"

"It's chocolate!" Chumley hurled back angrily.

"Rabid dog? What rabid dog?" Zane asked sharply.

"What, you mean you haven't heard?! Your little brother's been attacked by some German Shepherd randomly and Hassleberry and Axel are trying to wrestle it off but they're not succeeding!"

She didn't need to say THAT much. Zane had sprinted off in the direction of the screams he'd suddenly heard. His brain had only registered the words "little brother", "attacked", and "dog."

When he reached the scene around 8 seconds later, there was a chaotic melee with Axel determinedly trying to pull the dog's jaws off of Syrus's pant leg (luckily it hadn't bitten actual flesh), Syrus screaming shrilly and attempting to gouge the dog's eyes, the dog itself growling and hanging on tight, and Hassleberry was helping with one hand and fending off an old lady hitting him with a pink slipper with the other. The other partygoers were running around randomly and screaming.

"YOU BAD BOY! PROVOKING MY SWEETIE PIE LIKE THAT!"

"HELLSFIRE LADY, YOUR FUCKING DOG NEARLY TOOK OFF MY FRIEND'S LEG!" Hassleberry roared back at her.

"EEP! GET THIS DOG OFF MY LEG, I CAN'T REACH ITS EYES!"

"THAT'S RIGHT, TYRANNO, YOU GIVE IT TO HER!"

"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!"

Zane sighed.

"Definitely not a typical party."


	7. Pi Day

_OK, I get it. So Pi Day isn't a national holiday…Who gives a crap? It's fun! And it was Friday the 13__th__ yesterday, so I feel like writing something to celebrate, even if Friday the 13__th__ isn't even mentioned here._

_By the way, for your edification, March 1 was National Pig Day. Don't even ask._

_Standard disclaimers apply and reviews are always appreciated. Pi digits courtesy of some random Internet site._

"Are you kidding me?! _Bastion_'s the one holding the party today?"

Zane shrugged at his little brother. "So what? Sure, he isn't usually that social, but he might be trying to reach out to people more. And in any case he's definitely not going to have a party that ends up like that Valentine's Day party that Jaden hosted."

Syrus thought for a second. "Yeah. You didn't have to maul that dog with the metal baseball bat, you know."

"It was trying to bite your head off, you know…"

"Yeah, I guess. So, why are we going to Bastion's house?"

Zane looked at the party invitation. "Pi Day."

"I must say, I'm very glad that you two came," Bastion said cheerfully as Zane and Syrus got out of their car. "I was getting a little worried that nobody sane was going to come here."

"What do you mean, nobody sane?" Syrus asked curiously. "Isn't Alexis here yet? She's normal."

"Yeah, well, you know who comes over whenever she does."

"Atticus? What's so wrong with—Oh." Syrus paled as he realized what the implications of Atticus at a party were.

"Yes. I'm afraid you two are going to have to do without your pi pies, because Chumley already ate them both…Terribly sorry."

Before the two Truesdales could reassure them that they understood, Chumley had a formidable appetite, one of those terrible explosions that always seem to happen during a GX party.

Alexis's shriek pierced the sudden silence. "JAAAAAAADEEEEEN!"

Jaden barreled out of Bastion's yard and knocked Syrus down.

"Oh my god! Sy! Sorry about that, bro!"

"Hey, nice to see ya again, Jay!" Syrus yelled happily as he gave his best friend a hug. "Did you cause that explosion we heard?"

"Yeah, he did," Blair growled angrily as she jogged up and wrenched Jaden's ear painfully.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!" Jaden howled.

"Yeah! Guess how he got that homemade bomb in?! He stuck it down his pants so nobody could find it just so he could test it out somewhere his parents couldn't ground him!" Blair shook her head in disgust. "I mean, what else does he have hidden down there?"

The more…sexually educated…can guess what Jaden said.

Zane goggled at Jaden. "Am I going deaf with age, or did you just say that?...Wait, on the other hand, don't answer me."

Jaden looked around, completely unaware of the emotional damage that he'd wreaked on people. "What? I'm not lying, the only other stuff I have in my pants are my ba—"

Blair hastily stuffed some chocolate down his throat to shut him up.

Meanwhile, more guests were arriving at the party. Some of the stupider people *cough* HASSLEBERRY! *cough* didn't have a clue what Pi Day was and were obviously just using this occasion as an excuse for stuffing their faces full of free food. Well, we can't blame these people. They couldn't have known because they only read the invitation, ate 10 free pi pies, practically inflated 13 pi balloons with his resulting…gas, and walked past 5 walls with digits of pi written on them.

Bluntly put, Hassleberry's a dumbass.

Because it was his definition of a special occasion, Hassleberry had decided to wear something a little more formal than his giant twelve-pack showing-off vest, army pants and boots, and dinosaur cap that smelled like Crowler's morning breath. Instead, he had a moth-eaten green beret, a much-too-tight white t-shirt, and…no pants.

Zane, Syrus, Jaden, Bastion, and Blair gaped as the dinosaur freak walked by calmly in boxers and headed straight for Chumley and whatever pi pies he, Hassleberry, and Jaden hadn't devoured. He immediately attracted Jasmine and Mindy, who ran after him screaming in admiration of his body as Alexis leaned against a wall and rubbed her temples tiredly. It was these kinds of girls that gave all women a bad name…In fact, Jaden was so disturbed he ran off howling.

As Hassleberry disappeared into a building to do hell knows what with the girls, Zane coughed pointedly, turning everyone's attention to Jim and Jesse running over to them screaming their heads off.

"Whoa, calm down chaps!" Bastion yelled. "What is it?!"

"Sartoriussugarhigh—" was all Jesse managed to gasp out before he collapsed, panting, on the grass.

Jim was in better condition from a childhood of roaming around the outback and remained standing as he spilled the entire story.

"Chumley…got a bit carried away…and challenged Sartorius to this pie-eating contest. Sartorius got…pissed and Sarina tried…to stop him, but Sartorius…was unstoppable."

"Omigod," Zane breathed. "Well where is he now?"

Jesse looked up. "Currently pole dancing."

"Sacre merde!" roared Syrus. "I didn't even know that humans could twist like that!"

"Neither did I," Bastion muttered. "Who caused this anyway?"

Jaden coughed. "Um…So I got bored and since it's a pie celebration day I told Chumley to challenge Sartorius to a contest."

Bastion sighed. "Jaden, when we talk about Pi Day we don't mean pies like the kind that you eat. We're talking about the number pi, which is the sixteenth letter in the Greek alphabet. It is the relationship between a circle's circumference and diameter, and the first five hundred digits are: 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575959195309218611738193261179310511854807446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912."

After this lecture, Bastion keeled over and fainted from lack of oxygen. He landed on top of a loudly snoring Jaden, who'd fallen asleep by the time Bastion started reciting pi.

Zane's mouth worked for a couple of minutes before he could say anything. "Geez, what could get worse?"

Syrus shrugged. "I dunno, judging by the really big explosion and yell of 'MOTHERFUCK!' that just happened something worse probably did happen. Besides, I've got a feeling that someone who causes a hell of a lot of trouble hasn't appeared yet…"

"Yeah," his brother agreed. "Who could it be?"

Loud monkey screeches suddenly triggered something in the Truesdales' brains at the same time.

"Holy shit," Zane breathed. "Atticus."


	8. St Patrick's Day

_OK, sorry this chapter is a bit…a LOT… shorter than usual, but I'm slammed with a few essays and I've only had 3 days to get this up after Pi Day. Yes, you ARE going to learn what Atticus did at the Pi Day party. Patience, peops._

_There's no giant ruckus this time. No dogs. No exploding stuff. No Atticus. Wait, yes Atticus. I wanted to experiment and make this seem like more of a humorous quick oneshot. So, tell me how ya liked it!_

_Standard disclaimers apply._

Chapter 8: St. Patrick's Day

"Leave it to Adrian to come up with the smart idea," Zane muttered as he drove the carpool group of him, Syrus, Jaden, and Chumley to the St. Patrick's Day party. Everybody was wearing as much green as humanly possible. Jaden was especially enthusiastic. He didn't have any green in his repertoire, so he'd borrowed Alexis's green dress to avoid getting pinched by anyone who noticed that he wasn't wearing green on St. Paddy's Day.

"Well you and Syrus have already hosted your share of the parties. And a lot more," commented Chumley. "Jaden and Atticus's parents shouldn't have to suffer getting their house destroyed yet again, and I don't think Bastion's parents have yet recovered from the shock of their usually quiet nerd son inviting over a bunch of loud, messy teens, so it was smart to have a party in the local park."

"Loud, messy teens, one of which decided to explode a pig bladder in the kitchen and attempt to have sex with their son's stuffed monkey," muttered Syrus.

Zane shivered as he remembered the scene after Atticus's…uh... _long-awaited_ appearance at the Pi Day festival, at which he somehow managed to give Axel a seizure, Blair a heart attack, Zane a fit of apoplexy, turn Bastion's kitchen into a smoking ruin, and get admitted to the hospital when a furious Alexis beat him up with a mutilated stop sign that she'd found outside somewhere in under a minute.

"Yup, nobody can beat Atticus at being a nut. If anyone thinks they can I'd like to see them try."

Jaden, who'd been snoring his head off and drooling in the back seat, woke up with a start. "Wait, what?"

Zane choked. "Uh…nothing."

Finally, they arrived at the party. Since the last party had just been three days ago, Zane decided to grab Alexis and Bastion and disappear into a beautiful nature spot that he knew. They were just sitting around, talking about nice stuff, and eating the pizza Jesse brought. It was a HELL of a lot better than attempting to look like a party man.

Currently, he was having the most relaxing time of his life since that ill-fated Halloween celebration. Now if they wouldn't get discovered by—

"Wo-hoooooooooooah, nice place peops!"

--_Atticus._ Fighting back a howl of despair, Zane turned back and forced a smile on his face. "Oh hey."

"Guess what?! I brought this book to the party to learn some Irish customs 'coz it's St. Paddy's Day! So, me and Jaden learned how to Irish step dance! Those step dancers must have guts of steel! It's an incredibly painful thing!"  
Bastion blinked. "It is? Can you demonstrate it to us?"

Atticus did, and promptly keeled over on the ground, moaning and clutching his crotch gingerly. The other three goggled at him.

"Atticus," Zane began, "can we see the book that taught you this?"

Nodding, his *cough cough* best friend took out a battered booklet that looked mysteriously like porn.

Bastion sighed. "Thought so."

Atticus blinked. "Why?"

"Because," Alexis said, "we don't call that step dancing."

"Then what do we call it?"

"Kicking yourself in the balls."


	9. April Fool's Day

_Hey people, how's it goin'? Fine? OK then, I'll just assume you're fine because track has started and it's impossible to be too depressed when you've been on a runner's high like 5 days in a row. Zippe-dee-doo-daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah._

_I'd like to make a little announcement. This story began on Halloween 2008 and it will conclude on Halloween 2009. Yeah, that's right—it's not going to keep going forever. I have barely enough time to squeeze out chapters as it is and I'd like to try a few different projects. Maybe something along the lines of "Four Foot Nine"…_

_That said, enjoy the chapter! Standard disclaimers apply._

Chapter 9: April Fool's Day

Zane reached behind his back, ripping off the paper that had been taped on there. It said, "_5 MINUTES TO GET RID OF THIS ONCE YOU FIND IT!"_

The duelist groaned and sat down on a step, completely prepared to begin tearing his hair out when he realized something was incredibly wrong.

He was sitting on top of a step that was a giant blue marshmallow.

With a loud yelp, Zane leaped up and staggered back from the marshmallow step.

"Wh—what the hell is going on here?!" he gasped.

"Heheheheheheheheheh….."

Zane whirled around and blinked in surprise. It was his "best buddy" Atticus all right, but he was back in his Nightshroud mask and uttering the same evil cackle.

"Listen, Atticus—no, I'm not going to call you Atticus. Nightshroud. Get the fuck away from me and turn back to normal or I'll rip you apart and—"

But before he could even finish his threat, Nightshroud tore off his mask and turned back into Atticus, who shouted cheerfully, "HAHA! APRIL FOOL'S!"

He disappeared with a dramatic whirlwind on his heels. Zane snarled in annoyance and shielded his eyes. Something flapped noisily against his back.

"OK, I have no clue what the hell is going on here but it's not funny at a—" He stopped talking as he got a good look at what he'd just pulled off his back.

_"5 MINUTES TO GET RID OF THIS ONCE YOU FIND IT!"_

"How'd this get on my back yet again?!" Zane growled softly. He was about to throw it away when a fire mysteriously appeared in the distance. Like, appeared. He was sure it wasn't there before…

"Hm, weird. Is the world going completely nuts or what? Ah, whatever. As long as it's a fire that actually works…"

Zane crossed over to the fire and was about to stick the offending sign in it when his little brother's face suddenly appeared in it!

"Za-aaaaane," Syrus whimpered, "don't feed that to me! Paper tastes absolutely disgusting!"

"Syrus?! What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were back home watching _Scrubs_ with Jaden! And how come you're in a fire?!"

Jaden's head popped into the fire at this point. "Hey, move over Sy, a brother's gotta have some room! Oh hi Zane."

"Jaden? All right, there's something incredibly weird going on…"

"No duh! Did you know that paper tastes like crap here, but I can't get enough wood. Pine wood tastes absolutely awesome-est and maple is awesome-er and oak…I guess it's just awesome. Hey, where ya goin'?"

But Zane didn't hear this last comment, because he was running as fast as he could to escape the two heads in the fire.

"I must be hallucinating…must be hallucinating…must be—"

Jesse Anderson popped up beside him suddenly. "Howdy there, mind some company? I'm feelin' mighty lonely right now."

"Anderson! Do you have any clue what's happening to the world?"

"Huh?" Jesse tilted his head, obviously confused. "Um, Big Truesdale, there's nothing wrong with the world…"

"NOTHING WRONG?" Zane swung his finger around to point at where the fire was. "Look at that! What, you think that's normal?!"

"Ya do know that ya're pointin' at a cute little squirrel?"

"All right, are you nuts too? There's two heads, Jaden and Syrus's heads, which are floating in a fire over there and talking!"

Zane turned around to show the blind boy what he was talking about and was left speechless. There was nothing. Jaden and Syrus's heads, along with the fire, had completely gone from sight. In its place was an inquisitive little gray squirrel.

"All right, what the fuck is going on here, Anderson?" he barked angrily as he swung back to talk to the Southern duelist from North Academy. **(That's why the dub makes no sense at all…)**

However, Jesse had also disappeared. Zane paused for a second. He knew that Jesse wasn't very athletic at all and couldn't have covered the 100 yards to the woods nearby in 5 seconds. Especially because the freakin' WORLD RECORD was, like, 9 seconds.

"Yep, you're going crazy," murmured Adrian as he appeared in front of Zane. Zane swiped at him in annoyance, but Adrian winked out the minute that Zane raised his arm, fading into the mists as though he'd never existed in the first place.

"Do you really think the laws of science work this way?" Bastion asked, doing the same 5-second fade-in fade-out thing.

Zane howled in frustration. Just then, that pesky little sign that he'd removed twice before from his back began to flutter against his jacket yet again. He dropped to his knees and clenched his head.

"No, this can't be real…not even on April Fool's Day…I've got to be crazy…no, please…I don't think so…cut it out…talking heads…but heads are supposed to talk…MAKE IT ALL RETURN TO NORMAL ALREADY!"

And that was how Zane Truesdale woke up sweating in bed the night of March 31.


	10. Easter

_BOSTON MARATHON'S COMING UP! EVERYBODY WATCH IT INSTEAD OF HOCKEY OR WHATEVER THE HELL ELSE IS HAPPENING!_

_Ahem. In any case, the Easter chapter is up along with an allusion to Passover. I'll have to thank my Jewish buddies for pretty much canceling all preplanned homework. Oh, and the Good Friday people._

_Standard disclaimers apply._

Chapter 10: Easter

"It's not fair," Syrus complained as Zane their carpool people (both Truesdales, Jaden, and Chumley) to Atticus's house for yet another party.

"Easter is religious and so are Christmas and Passover and Yom Kippur and stuff! How come us atheists don't get holidays too? I'm feeling left out."

"Oh what, Sy, you want them to cancel these holidays and let us go to school and do homework and all that crap?" asked Jaden as he munched on his 27th chocolate egg, then stuffed his 49th Peeps chick into his mouth. "No way! I say give us all the holidays you can!"

"Jaden, you're spilling wrappers all over the car. And Zane just bought it with money he's been saving up for 3 years."

"C'mon, Chumley, even old fartface Zane won't be so upti—"

"WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?! AND DID SOMEONE SAY HE'S DAMAGING MY CAR?!" Zane roared loudly, turning around.

"Uh, big bro, you might wanna watch where you're going…"

Too late. When Zane turned back, he'd also moved the steering wheel and that meant that the car was now going off in some other direction. It miraculously avoided hitting any cars for about 10 seconds, but now they were heading for a stop sign. And it didn't look that nice.

"TURN IT AROUND!" Chumley bellowed, quickly moving his giant bulk into the shotgun seat. However, he'd forgotten that Syrus was currently sitting there, so when he jumped the much smaller duelist obviously got crushed, squeaking in protest.

One of Syrus's flailing limbs smashed against the steering wheel. The car swerved sharply and missed the stop sign by about 2 inches.

Strangely, Jaden had opened his window and was sticking his head out the window and screeching loudly. It seemed that he was enjoying the whole experience.

"GET YOUR HEAD BACK IN, DUMBASS!" Zane growled loudly. When Jaden didn't respond, he reached backwards and grabbed Jaden by the scruff of his Easter bunny suit, pulling him back in a mere half a second before he would've been decapitated by a tree limb.

I DID mention that Jaden was in an Easter bunny suit, right? My bad.

Jaden went down with a sharp bark of protest and turned the car yet again. Now they were headed for a nearby detergent shop.

Chumley stopped trying to heave himself off of Syrus. "Whoa, they actually have an entire shop for detergent?"

"WHO GIVES A CRAP?! GET OFF ME!" Syrus yelled.

"Oops. Sorry." He did so.  
Luckily, Zane had regained control of the steering wheel by now and managed to steer them over and park on the side.

"Whew. That was a close one," Syrus sighed.

Zane leaned back in his seat. "Yeah, and guess who started it?"

Three angry faces turned back to glare at Jaden the almost-decapitated Easter Bunny, who was simultaneously on his 28th chocolate egg and his 50th Peeps chick.

Jaden looked at everyone quizzically. "What!"

Not counting their near-murder by a violent stop sign, the four managed to reach Atticus's party without incident.

Atticus came out of his house and saw his best buddy Zane driving in, so he gave an excited whoop and leaped out to give him a hug.

Everyone in the car winced at the resulting loud "splat". Apparently, Attticus had forgotten there was a windshield between him and Zane.

"Owwwww….." the hapless Obelisk moaned.

Zane couldn't help it: He leaned back in his seat, threw back his head, and howled with laughter.

Affronted, Atticus got up and brushed himself off about as dignifiedly as he could. "Humph! Some best friend I have. I'm severely hurt, dontcha see?" He turned around and was about to walk back inside with dignity, but ended up running himself straight into a telephone pole. This only made Zane laugh harder.

The other 3 occupants of the car stared. "Wow," Syrus muttered. "Looks like Atticus and my bro switched roles…"

"HELP!" Bastion sprinted out of the house at that point, shirtless and surprisingly muscular. He was followed by what looked like a drunk Chazz.

"What the hell?" Jaden yelled, surprising everyone with his language, as he leaped out the car window to help and ended up spearing his crotch on a nearby fence.

"ATTICUS SLIPPED SOME BRANDY INTO THE POOR CHAP'S DRINK! NOW SOMEONE KEEP HIM AWAY FROM ME! HE'S CONVINCED THAT I'VE BRAINWASHED ALEXIS INTO BELIEVING THAT HE'S A PORCUPINE!"

"Porcupine? Those taste good," Chumley said to himself before he finally toppled over and fell asleep. He did that every day at 3 pm. Weird.

"GET BACK HERE YOU BASTARD! NEVER INTERFERE WITH MY LOVE! IT IS AS PURE AS THE NEW-FALLEN SNOW FROM A DECEMBER SK—"

He was cut off when Zane hastily climbed out of the car and picked up a stray fencepost, then hit him over the head with it.

"Damn, he's good, and Bastion's freakin' ripped! Why the hell did everyone start working out and why wasn't I given the message?" Syrus asked himself sadly, poking at his thin arm.

Jaden cheerfully patted him on the back. "Don't worry, buddy. At least you aren't like Chumley! He took 12 minutes to run a mile!"

Syrus winced. "Ouch, that IS bad…"

Bastion clapped Zane on the back, relieved. "Hey, thanks buddy!"

"No prob, but where's the rest of the party?"

"Uh….you might not want to see it…considering that a bunch of the people in there have the maturity of a five-year-old and they want their Easter Bunny or else…Oh, and Jaden? Put the hood back on. They'll think that you killed the bunny and Alexis is having a hard enough time dealing with them already."

"EASTER BUNNY?! TELL ME WHERE!!!!!" Hassleberry's manic voice howled from somewhere in the house.

Zane blinked. "I…see."

Jaden thought for a second. "Oh well, like I care! Coz guess what?!"

"What?" someone asked.

"5 minutes to get rid of it!" And with that, Jaden cartwheeled off to certain doom.

Bastion sighed sadly. "And he took those Easter eggs he was supposed to hand out too…He is SO dead."

Something sparked in the back of Syrus's memory and he sat down weakly on the snoring Chumley. "No he didn't."

The two others turned towards him. "What do ya mean?" Zane asked.

"Jaden didn't take those chocolate eggs into the house. Don't you remember, bro? He ate them all on the car. He's carrying empty wrappers."

The ensuing silence was broken by the far-away wail of Jaden and the sound of Alexis hitting the frenzied boys with a baseball bat.


	11. Earth Day

_Hey there people, how's it going? Enjoying your vacation? I know I am—I spent almost the entire of Patriot's Day (yes, I know I missed that…) watching the Boston Marathon. I've gotta say that I'm sad Ryan Hall and Kara Goucher both placed third, but considering the fact that they were surrounded by Kenyan and Ethiopian runners that's still pretty impressive._

_In any case, I was reminded by someone that I'd missed Patriot's Day and then I learned that Earth Day was today. Of course, the person who told me this had to tell me at, like, 4:00. So here you go—short but, I hope, as good as usual._

_Standard disclaimers apply._

Chapter 11: Earth Day

"ATTICUS! GET THE HELL OFF OF FACEBOOK ALREADY! I KNEW THAT LETTING YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS WAS A HELL OF A BAD MISTAKE!" Alexis bellowed loudly, growling in anger.

Her big brother looked up from the computer screen in dismay. "C'mon, Alexis, I've only poked like 100 people!"

Alexis blinked, taken aback. "Wait a sec, you've been on Facebook for all of twenty minutes and you already have 100 friends?!"

"Hm, maybe you could send that in to Guinness to try and qualify for a world record," Adrian muttered absently as he walked downstairs, his nose buried in a book called "How to Hack Into Macs".

Blowing out an exasperated breath, the Queen of Obelisk turned back to her brother, who was now impatiently strumming his ukulele as he waited for people to respond to his pokes. It wasn't much of a wait.

"man, wtf?!?! No1 pokes any1 on here anymor!"

"ok, if u keep doin that ill remove u from my friend list dude"

"who the hell told u 2 get a facebk?!?!"

And, the crown jewel of them all, "U CAN SUCK MY CAMEL BALLZ!"

Smiling happily, Atticus turned around in his chair and said, "See sis?! They really love it, they do! I'm gonna do it some more!"

"No!" Alexis slammed her hand down on the power button on the computer after she logged Atticus out. Incredible reflexes…

"What?! Sis, what'd you do that for?!"

"It's EARTH DAY, idiot! We're supposed to be celebrating the wonder of our planet and saving energy today because stupid people waste it so much the rest of the year!"

Atticus thought about that for a few moments, his eyebrows drawn together. For one second, Alexis thought there might be hope. Then:

"The wonder of our planet? Are you talking about sex?"

Zane winced as something howled in agony from upstairs. "I bet you five bucks that was Alexis hitting Atty over the head with a baseball bat."

Bastion grinned. "Five says it was her da's old golf club."

"Done." They continued their game of poker with everybody else.

A couple minutes passed by before, yawning, Syrus got up from the poker table and rubbed his eyes. "Hey, you guys mind if I go to sleep somewhere? Haven't been getting that much sleep lately…"

"Yeah, no problem," Jesse muttered absently as he studied his hand. "Damn, this is bad…I think Alexis put a cot under that humongo sofa behind you, Sy, and there're blankets on the armchair."

"Thanks, buddy." Syrus found what Jesse had described, lay down, and was immediately out like a light.

Zane smiled wistfully to himself, thinking that no matter how much older Syrus got, he still always looked so frickin' cute and vulnerable when he slept. Seriously, he still remembered that time eight years ago—

_BLAM! _Everyone jumped and Zane was shocked out of his reverie. Syrus sat up in bed and groaned, leaning against the couch.

"OK then, what the heck happened this time?!"

"Hell if I know, but it doesn't sound good," Axel growled, reaching into his military jacket and pulling a knife out of nowhere.

"Everybody go back to whatever the hell you were doing before," came Alexis's angry snarl as she stumped down the stairs, looking for all the world like a chicken with diarrhea.

Jaden opened his mouth to ask what happened, but a smart Chumley elbowed him quite painfully and he actually shut his mouth.

As Alexis left to go into the kitchen, the rest of the gang heard Atticus howling mournfully from upstairs, "MMMFSLKJSDFLSDKSD!"

Zane and Chazz were elected to go upstairs by Nosegame elimination. They weren't that enthusiastic about it…

However, the situation turned out to be almost laughable. Atticus was tied securely against a chair with duct tape on his mouth.

"Psh." Zane shook his head. "Teaches HIM to piss off Alexis."


End file.
